As the most populous nation on earth, and the world’s second-largest economy, China is increasingly becoming both a concern and an opportunity for investors. (As an example of China’s influence on the global economy, a recent analysis by The Economist tied more than 10% of American multinational corporate revenue to China.) A 4,000-year-old culture has […]

Ash: To start today, let’s discuss why you think monetary policy is so important to individuals? It’s a topic that’s often talked about, but in the context of banks and corporations—not individuals—and usually with a lot of academic jargon. Nouriel: In the most fundamental sense, the ultimate goal of monetary policy is to keep the […]

In fact, it would be a fair summary of economic history to say that those nations that have opened their economies to the rest of the world have succeeded, and their populations prospered, while those nations that have failed to do so have been left behind. This is true whether one looks back over the […]

NEW YORK – The escalating conflict in Ukraine between the Western-backed government and Russian-backed separatists has focused attention on a fundamental question: What are the Kremlin’s long-term objectives? Though Russian President Vladimir Putin’s immediate goal may have been limited to regaining control of Crimea and retaining some influence in Ukrainian affairs, his longer-term ambition is […]

While I’ve never been involved in the movie business professionally, I’ve had the opportunity to play a few small roles in film. I appeared as myself in the 2010 documentary film Inside Job, about the financial crisis of 2007-2008. Inside Job premiered at the Cannes Film Festival four years ago, and it won an Academy […]

NEW YORK – Like individuals, corporations, and other private firms that rely on bankruptcy procedures to reduce an excessive debt burden, countries sometimes need orderly debt restructuring or reduction. But the ongoing legal saga of Argentina’s fight with holdout creditors shows that the international system for orderly sovereign-debt restructuring may be broken. Individuals, firms, or […]

In the immediate aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, policymakers’ success in preventing the Great Recession from turning into Great Depression II held in check demands for protectionist and inward-looking measures. But now the backlash against globalization – and the freer movement of goods, services, capital, labor, and technology that came with it – […]

The biggest geopolitical risk of our times is not a conflict between Israel and Iran over nuclear proliferation. Nor is it the risk of chronic disorder in an arc of instability that now runs from the Maghreb all the way to the Hindu Kush. It is not even the risk of Cold War II between […]

NEW YORK – The world’s economic, financial, and geopolitical risks are shifting. Some risks now have a lower probability – even if they are not fully extinguished. Others are becoming more likely and important. A year or two ago, six main risks stood at center stage: · A eurozone breakup (including a Greek exit and […]

NEW YORK – One definition of an emerging-market economy is that its political risks are higher, and its policy credibility lower, than in advanced economies. After the financial crisis, when emerging-market economies continued to grow robustly, that definition seemed obsolete; now, with the recent turbulence in emerging economies driven in part by weaker economic-policy credibility […]